Newport High School - Blunita Yearbook (Newport, PA)

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4 THE BLUE AND WHITE 1830, this hillside hummed with life. Then one day a young man drifted down the river on a flat boat and was hired -to keep the store. He was tall, lank and ungainly. His shoes were clumsy brogans, and hie tight homespun trousers were five inches too short. After a whale he became partner in a store and then postmaster. One spring day he was handing another man’s love letters over the counter to Ann Rutledge. Ann, at the age of 20, was beautiful. She wore her hair in two long braids. She had lips red like ripe cherries and the violet eyes beneath the blue sunbonnet flashed coquet-ishly. Her glances had pierced the heart of more 'than one New Salem youth. But it was John McNeil who had won her. He was reckoned a rich young man, because he possessed twelve thousand dollars. Shortly after they became engaged Ann watched him ride out of town one day on horseback on his way back to his boyhood home in New York State. Now she eagerly watches for the arrival of his letters. All the happiness of life seemed blooming along her path. Then her happiness was destroyed, the letters ceased. There leaked out a story about McNeil. Before McNeil had left he had told Ann 'that his real name was McNamar. He had i-un away from home when a boy and changed hie name, so that his family could not find him. The gossips began to talk, “who knows,” they said one to another, but behind this change of name, there lurks some secret crime, or perhaps it is some other woman to whom he has gone. It was the young postmaster who had seen the first expression of alarm creep info Ann’© blue eyes. “Isn’t there any letter today?” She would ask. And he would mutely shake his head. What could the matter be? Nobody but the gossips could say, and their explanation seemed the only one. The girl hoped against hope as long as she could. Then the slim young figure drooped in despair. When all the best young men of the town were at Ann Rutledge's feet, Abraham Lincoln stood far down the line of her admirers. He didn’t know’ how -to say pretty idle nothings to a girl, He knew so well how to be sorry for anyone in trouble. So he was at hand now when Ann needed him. He was boarding at her father’s house. There sprang up between them a close companionship. When she went to the well for water, he was at her side to carry the bucket; when she sat at the kitchen doorstep hulling strawberries, he was there to help. They borrowed a text book from the schoolmaster. She taught

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ANN RUTLEDGE Leah Boyer, '30 Who was Ann Rutledge? She was Lincoln’s first and last love. Other women loved Lincoln, hut we have no record that he ever loved them. There are letters that have been called love letters, in which the word “love is not mentioned. And there are other letters that one biographer collected, which reveal the real Lincoln, when he finally made his wife one of the women who loved him. Twice in Abraham Lincoln’s life he nearly lost hie reason, the first time was when he listened to a preacher's voice saying, “Ashes to Ashes, and Dust to Dust,” over a newly made grave in a cemetery. It overtook him again when his wedding bells were almost ready to ring. Ann Rutledge was the daughter of James Rutledge, a leading resident and owner of the tavern and old mill of New Salem, a small town near Springfield, Illinois. There are none of its people feft now. Tall trees grow in Its grass covered streets, where cattle used to browse. But back in

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THE BLUE AND WHITE 5 him grammar. Slowly but surely there came to the blue eyes a happier light. Soon Lincoln was accompanying her to the dances and quilting It was in May when he came back from Vandalia, where he had represented Sangamon county in the legislature that Ann’s eager welcome gave him courage. They had gone together to a quilting party. While the rest of the company were chatting, he drew a chair over to her side and told her softly in an undertone that he loved her. Her head bent low over the bed quilt, and her nervous needle made uneven stitches. “But I'm promised; .promised still to him, you know,” she replied. “Him! He’s forfeited all right,” protested the wooer at her side. “Anyhow you no longer love him.” Ann Rutledge wrote one last letter, breaking her engagement When time had passed and no reply came, she plighted her troth to Abraham Lincoln. This was ju»t before he started to Springfield to study law. They planned to be married when his studies should be completed. “Then, sweetheart,” he said, “nothing on God’s foot-stool shall keep u« apart.” Through that summer he often came from Springfield. Then he and Ann would walk aiong the banks of the river. He wove garlands of wild flowers for her hair and carved her name with his on all the trees. The old residents of Sangamon county say, “We have seen the names. Only yesterday did the bark grow over them.” Lincoln came back to spend with Ann her birthday on July fifteenth. Soon after he went back to Springfield, she became 111 from a fever. One day in August a messenger came in great haate to Spring field to tell him that Ann was very ill. He jumped on a horse and rode all night to reach her. Breathless and mud-spattered he strode into the sick room and dropped on his knees by her bed. All the rest went out and left them alone with their love. He came from the room with hie face lined with the agony that lined ever after. On August twenty-fifth, 1835, Ann died. “My heart is buried there,” he sobbed, when they lowered her Into the grave at Concord cemetery. He would neither eat nor sleep. Sometimes he roamed over the hills and through the woods. Sometimes he sat for hours with his head bowed in grief, the tears trickling through his hands. When it rained his sorrow was wildest.